Gedenkstätte Stille Helden

Hedwig Wittekind worked as a sculptress in Berlin. Through her friend, the communist Franz Streit, she met the Jewish couple Adelheid and Werner Müller and their three-year-old daughter. Hedwig Wittekind and Franz Streit supported the Müllers in going underground from February 1943. Since it was dangerous to house the whole family in one place, only Werner Müller lived alternately with Hedwig Wittekind and Franz Streit. Adelheid Müller initially hid with her daughter in various places in central and western Germany. In May 1943 they returned to Berlin, and Hedwig Wittekind let the Müllers use her studio. Wittekind took their daughter to her hometown of Büdingen and passed her off as the child of a bombed-out couple. When the girl fell ill several times, the doctor she had called informed the youth welfare office. She was put into a children’s home but survived there undiscovered.
In July 1944, the Gestapo picked up the Müllers and Franz Streit. Werner Müller died in Dachau concentration camp in 1945. His wife Adelheid survived and was able to collect her daughter from the children’s home in 1946.